Navy makes its own cloud migration plans

By Amber Corrin

Apr 08, 2013

The Navy will move its low-impact IT systems and mission functions to commercial cloud providers, "unless a more cost-effective DOD solution is identified," under a directive from Navy CIO Terry Halvorsen.

The measure is part of a memo that Halvorsen signed April 1 providing guidelines for the use of commercial cloud services throughout the department. It comes after a pilot program with Amazon Web Services that migrated the Navy Secretary's public-facing portal to a commercial cloud services provider. That pilot has paved the way for the Navy to move publicly releasable information to a commercial cloud environment, according to a release from the department.

"The experience the [Navy Department] gains through initial application of cloud computing, in conjunction with security requirements, will inform future decisions on how to best apply this technology," a Navy cloud computing fact sheet posted April 8 stated.

The Navy will now move forward in broader applications of cloud services.

The caveat regarding a potential DOD alternative for the low-impact systems leaves the door open to the Navy potentially moving to cloud services under the Defense Information Systems Agency, which is the Defense Department's de facto cloud services broker. Pentagon officials previously have designated DISA to take the lead on cloud initiatives for DOD components.

The memo alludes to DISA's services, but the Navy appears to be moving toward the commercial sector on its own.

"The broker concept is still being developed by DOD and is not fully in place," the memo noted. "Therefore, pending further guidance from the DOD CIO, the [Navy Department] must move forward and employ capable solutions that meet mission and security requirements and provide the best value."